Journalist Judy Woodruff retired from the PBS NewsHour anchor desk in 2022, but spent 2023 on a cross-country tour filing reports on political polarization, some of which ended up in this year-ending hour-long election special America at a Crossroads, used as connective tissue to go along with new content.
The special’s thin patina of objectivity — there were limited mentions of Donald Trump — was amusingly broken by Woodruff herself, with some liberal slant via an archive clip nearly 40 years old, from Woodruff’s days reporting for PBS’s McNeil/Lehrer NewsHour (later to be renamed the PBS NewsHour).
1984 Woodruff characterized a clash on the House floor.
Woodruff: A feud that has been simmering for weeks between Democrats and a group of conservative Republicans finally reached the boiling point.
That was Woodruff from a May 15, 1984 story…
